In article ,
"Cereoid-UR12-" wrote:

Gnaphalium obtusifolium, commonly called "rabbit tobacco".
It is also one of the plants commonly called "everlasting" and used in dried
flower arrangements.

Thanks! That put me on the right track at least, & I was able to start on
the right page of the natives guide to figure this out. Gnapalium
obtusifolium has slightly pointed flowers making up a looser raceme & is
native of Eastern N.A. This one appears to be Pseudognaphalium macounii
with flat-topped barrel shaped flowers in a tighter bunch, & native of
right here in the Northwest (as well as all of Canada & most of the
northern US). My great-gran growing it around a stump in a meadow along
with yarrows seems to have been a common thing in times past, both plants
needing no attention & purportedly having medicinal values.

-paghat the ratgirl



paghat wrote in message
news
I'm expecting this one will be easy for folks, but it hasn't been for me.
This wildflower:
http://www.paghat.com/images/sweetsomething_aug.jpg
has been blooming all summer & still blooming now. It popped up in a
roadside sungarden as a volunteer, very tiny last year, a good-sized clump
this year. It's less than two feet tall. The clusters of blooms add up at
biggeset to the size of a fist.

I remember when I was a child this very flower grew around a stump with
yarrows on my great-gram's farm & the grandkids would pick them & gramma
taught us how to dry flowers using this thing. But I can't for the life of
me remember what she called them.


--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/